Authors of the Century
Via Jeff at Quid Nomen Ilius, I found a Bloomsday posting over at University Diaries, which makes the following statement: "'Ulysses,' one writer points out, 'is the only book in the world...to which a holiday is dedicated.'"
I beg to differ. I can think of another book which has generated a kind of annual holiday -- one which, I'd venture to guess, involves just as many, if not more, participants and revelers. The date of this literary holiday, like the date of Bloomsday, comes from a significant date in the text itself. The book's author, like Joyce, was born at the end of the nineteenth century in what was at the time a British colony. Unlike Joyce, who was a high priest of modernism, this book's author rejected modernist techniques and themes.
Many of the gatekeepers of the academy would bristle at the mention of this author's name in the same breath with James Joyce. But the partisans of Joyce's shadow-author are beginning to come out of the closet.
Don't get me wrong. I love James Joyce. But I love the other guy, too -- perhaps all the more because for so long it was a love that dare not speak its name.
I beg to differ. I can think of another book which has generated a kind of annual holiday -- one which, I'd venture to guess, involves just as many, if not more, participants and revelers. The date of this literary holiday, like the date of Bloomsday, comes from a significant date in the text itself. The book's author, like Joyce, was born at the end of the nineteenth century in what was at the time a British colony. Unlike Joyce, who was a high priest of modernism, this book's author rejected modernist techniques and themes.
Many of the gatekeepers of the academy would bristle at the mention of this author's name in the same breath with James Joyce. But the partisans of Joyce's shadow-author are beginning to come out of the closet.
Don't get me wrong. I love James Joyce. But I love the other guy, too -- perhaps all the more because for so long it was a love that dare not speak its name.
posted by Kate Marie | 12:21 PM | Permalink
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9 comments
9 Comments:
OK, KMa, I'm not a Tolkien geek (although I have a certain undying affection for a select group of them), what's the holiday??
I refer, of course, to September 22, the date of Bilbo and Frodo's birthday. The Lord of the Rings begins with a "long-expected party" for Bilbo's 111th birthday.
Here's a sample of a Hobbit birthday celebration. Here's another, which I'd love to attend one of these days.
Hmmmm, Well Kma, it ain't no Bloomsday, but my affection remains undying.
It ain't no Bloomsday?
That remark cannot pass! I am a servant of the Secret Fire, wielder of the flame of Anor. It cannot pass. The dark fire will not avail you, flame of Udun. Go back to the Shadow! You cannot pass.
I don't speak Tolkeinese K Ma, have I been insulted or threatened or both??
I basically called you a Balrog -- an insult and an implicit threat.
But I didn't mean it, of course.
Yes, I'm saying it loud. I'm a Tolkien geek, and I'm proud!
As early as the late 1980s, the gaming store in my college town celebrated Bilbo's birthday. The only press it usually got was an enigmatic little classified ad in the campus paper. I could never quite bring myself to go; the local gamers and genre fans were a little too weird even by my rather loose standards...
I hear ya, Jeff. I've never done the gaming thing, and I've never really been a fan of "fantasy" literature (not knocking it, just don't know much about it), but I've decided to embrace my Tolkien geekdom. So those people at The Days of Knights are MY people, man!
It looks like a nice place, actually.
There are a lot of Holidays named after Movies.
1. Halloween is named after the Scary Jamie Lee Curtis Movie.
2. Tom Cruise was in an Oliver Stone Movie, Born on the 4th of July. Hence, the Holiday was born.
3. People liked the movie, When We Were Kings so much they named a Holiday in January after it.
I could go on.
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